Collectors Of Foreign Currency

It goes without saying that every regime has the right to defend itself and its money, just as it is understood that it is doing so in the interests of the entire population and with the idea of preserving the national wealth. It is symptomatic that some distinguished Belgrade bankers have greeted the introduction of the forms for the purchase of foreign currency, but only as a step towards a serious and responsible monetary policy. The bankers' proposal can be summed up as: the country is in a special situation, and that means that the foreign currency reserves are depleted, so that it is perfectly understandable that one cannot talk of the dinar's false internal convertibility and the right to buy German Marks and dollars, but that the temporary rationing of foreign currency must be publicly explained.

It is possible to debate on why the authorities remain deaf to the experts' proposals, but one of the main reasons is that they have no intention of revealing the sum total of the state's foreign currency reserves, and less still, who is responsible for decreasing them and who increases them. It is a safe bet that street dealers, small tradesmen and smugglers are no way near the top of the list of consumers. Naturally, when the reserves are very thin, i.e. when the economy is under sanctions and for the greatest part stateowned or sociallyowned, then every single dollar is as big as a mountain. However, the problem won't be resolved by hounding small tradesmen with exorbitant tax rates, or scaring citizens with receipts and forms. Those who understand the mechanisms of power here, don't think that those in authority are so naive as to expect something spectacular from cleaning up the streets, but reason that the real collecting of foreign currency has yet to come.

In Belgrade business circles there are many who claim that the money collectors have started their job by sweeping down on commercial banks. Longtime no. 1 man in Investbanka, Stojan Dabic's surprise resignation is being mentioned in this context. The resignation was accepted without protest in the presence of Executive Board President (Dusan Matkovic, Director of the Smederevo Steelworks) and board member Milomir Minic, head of the Serbian railways and Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) secretary general, who attended a board meeting for the first timeprecisely when Dabic resigned ``for personal reasons.'' Anything to do with the country's foreign currency reserves is a very well kept secret, so that VREME has agreed to make an exception and to carry some of the stories making the rounds among businessmen and politicians these days.

One story speaks of the clash between Matkovic and Dabic over an unpaid debt to the bank. There is another, similar one, only this time the main actor is closer to the top of the powerpyramid. Minic allegedly demanded Dabic's resignation, and the latter showed that he knew the score, when he sent his written resignation to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. At the same time, there are stories that Investbanka, through a family bank, got into trouble by granting what is a large loan under the present conditions (12 million dinars) to a littleknown private firm, whose owner has vanished along with the money. The mortgage has remained but it was later discovered that its value was highly overrated with fictitious sales.

None of those in the know believe that the scandal over the loan could have been the reason for Dabic's departure. It is generally believed that the authorities will appoint present ViceGovernor of the National Bank of Yugoslavia (NBJ) Nikola Stanic in Dabic's place, in order that he might discover where Investbanka's foreign currency reserves are, their total, and the bank's customers. At Investbanka's annual assembly in late April, Dabic denied all links with street dealers, but confirmed that the bank had consolidated its foreign currency balance, that it had bought more foreign currency than it had sold to the citizens, that it had transferred nine million German Marks to the NBJ thanks to exchange transactions, and enabled its partners to go into debt abroad for the sum of nearly ten million German Marks. In spite of all this, Dabic complained at the time, that the NBJ was demanding another 6.8 million German Marks as a fine for an overdraft on the bank's giro account, and which it could not pay since it did not have any foreign currency of its own.

All in all, it seems that the authorities did not believe that the bank ``didn't have any foreign currency of its own,'' i.e. they couldn't care less if this money belonged to the bank or its partners. When one is part of a happy marriage between state and social (party) ownership, it is natural for the money to reach other Investbanka clients, such as for example, Serbian railways and Serbian steelworks.

The filling in of forms when buying foreign currency will slow down the buying up of the 50 million German Marks which have officially been earmarked from the state's foreign currency reserves in order to maintain the present rate of the dinar. However, much greater sums will not be sufficient to satisfy the insatiable appetites of the stateparty administrators of the Serbian economy, and of course, the Montenegrin economy, so that we can expect new resignations among bankers for ``personal reasons.'' As far as the dinar is concerned, the authorities will resolve the problem as they did in the paper producing factory ``Matroz'': by arbitrarily putting the firm under state ownership, and achieving a healthy business turnover by declaring a moratorium on all debts to business partners. It is said that the ``Beograd'' department store faces a similar fate, including its director, whose post is to be given to Radoman Bozovic (former Serbian Prime Minister currently Federal Parliament Speaker), even though there has been mention that he might take Zlatan Perucic's place as the director of ``Beobanka.'' The new dinar is not threatened by street dealers. The people want a stable dinar, but, well, that's their problem.